DriveThru
by Jonathan R
Summary: Zim's latest plan to rule the world: Slip mind-control pills into people's fast-food orders. Will Dib be able to spot the dfference? Rated PG for brief drug references.


"Drive-Thru"

  
  


[Author's Note: I wrote this story several months ago, but I held back posting it after hearing news reports of people receiving drugs through drive-thru restaurant windows. Hopefully, it's OK to post this story now. I've done a little character editing, too, as some of my loyal fans might notice.]

  
  


The day was Saturday. The sky was a sickening shade of purple. Weird clouds slowly floated by in a southeastern direction. Below these clouds, Zim's freaky little house stood as if it were installed there by constipated electricians. The laser-activated lawn gnomes kept a careful surveillance of the surrounding area. Inside the house, in the living room to be exact, Gir was watching TV. Nearby, Zim the alien was pacing back and forth. He was trying to come up with a new plan for world domination, as usual. However, the TV was distracting his concentration. 

  
  


"Gir!" shouted Zim. "Will you quit watching that...simulated filth? I'm trying to come up with my latest plan for WORLD DOMINATION!!!"

"Awww, can't it wait until the commercial?" asked Gir the robot, in a metallic, soprano voice. 

Zim sighed. "Very well, but afterwards, make those eyeball-rotting images vanish, understand?" Zim continued pacing.

  
  


The Announcer's voice erupted from the TV at that moment. "We'll return to the 'Twisted Little Monkey Show' after a word from our sponsor."

A new voice spoke up immediately afterwards. He had a thick, Western accent. The screen showed a fast food restaurant filled with customers. "Hey, everbody! Wanna have some good, hot, artery-clogging food? Really fast? Well then, come on down to 'Burger Now' where you get your food not later...but NOW!" Just then, the announcer spoke really fast. It sounded like this: "Burgernowhasjustinstalledanewdrivethruwindow. Comebytodayallcreditcardsaccepted."

  
  


Zim was just about to tell Gir to turn the TV off, when he stopped. "Wait a minute! Let me hear that again!"

Zim pressed a button on a large, electronic black box under the TV. It was used to record Earth's broadcasts from the TV, or at least those from this city. The TV began rewinding back to the middle of the commercial. Then, Zim pressed the 'Slow' button and heard what the announcer said before: "Burger Now has just installed a new drive-thru window. Come by today. All credit cards accepted."

  
  


Zim turned off the TV.

"Hey! I'm not done watching!" said Gir.

"Yes. YES!!!" yelled Zim, launching a triumphant fist into the air. "I have it! My newest plan to take over this puny planet! Quickly, Gir! To the lab!" With that, Zim ran to the bathroom, stood in the toilet, and flushed himself down into the lab. 

"Awww. Now I'll never get to see the monkey," whined Gir, as he slowly walked down to the lab.

  
  


Gir watched Zim digging into a drawer. "Now where did I put them...A-HA! Here we are!" said Zim, as he pulled out a plastic bag. Inside the bag was a small mass of metal pills. If you looked hard enough, you could detect tiny, microscopic lights flashing on the surface of every pill.

"Yay! Candy!" shouted Gir, and he reached out to grab the bag.

Zim fended him off. "No, Gir! This isn't candy! These are my mind-decelerating control capsules!!! They have been proven (I think) to reduce the intelligence of a human being into a mindless sap. I've been saving these for just such an emergency."

"So how are you going to give them to people?" asked Gir. "Up the-..."

"NO! No, Gir! I've got an even better idea! I will get a...what is it again?...oh yeah...a JOB at the fast food place we just saw. Then, as the people pull up to the window to order their food, I will place the pill into their order, and WHAM! They become powerless to my control!" Zim commences to laughing evilly. "OK.....WE LEAVE AT ONCE!"

  
  


Several minutes later, Zim and Gir arrived at the Burger Now restaurant wearing their 'boy' and 'dog' disguises. The 'B' in the 'Burger Now' sign was slightly rotting away, so the sign read, 'Purger Now'. Gir asked Zim who was being "purgered". Zim suddenly realized that he didn't need Gir for this mission. He turned to Gir.

"If you run home right now, maybe you could still watch the end of your monkey show."

"Hooray! Monkey show!" shouted Gir, and ran home. He didn't run ten feet before he collided head-on with a fire hydrant. He got right back up, though, and kept running.

  
  


Zim sighed and headed into the restaurant. There was no line, and barely anyone in the building at all. He walked up to the cashier who was wearing employee attire (a red hat and apron).

"Excuse me, madam," Zim said to the teenage girl working the cash register. "I'm seeking a job offer as a drive-thru window operator. Where do I go to seek such a position?"

The girl pointed to a tall man mopping the floor. He was wearing a T-shirt with a blue hedgehog on it and a hat with a little pink dog on the front of it. This man had, um, problems, to say the least. I'll just say that his mouth twitches when he talks.

Zim walked up to the man. "Excuse me, uh, Chris," Zim said, as he read the man's name tag. "I'd like to seek a job position as a drive-thru window operator."

Chris looked at this strange kid with weird, buggy eyes. "Sorry, dude. (kchch) We already have someone (kch) filling that (kch) position (kchchch)." Chris pointed to a nervous kid who was staring out the drive-thru window.

Zim was stumped. He tried to figure out what to do next, when the drive-thru kid began screaming, "I can't take it anymore!! I gotta get outta here!!" He suddenly tore off his apron, threw his employee hat on the ground, and ran out the door, screaming all the way.

"That was Rex. (kch) He thinks he's an armadillo....Oh yeah. (kchch) You're hired."

  
  


Before he knew it, Zim was in 'Burger Now' attire, name tag and all, and standing at the drive-thru window. Zim quickly took a small device with a little screen out of his pocket. He turned it on, and Gir appeared in the screen.

"Gir! My plan for world overtaking is underway! Everything is going according to plan."

"How, Zim? You haven't even taken over the town yet!"

Zim gritted his teeth. "I'm aware of that, Gir! But once everybody consumes my mind pills and the people become mindless saps, the town will be under my complete control!!"

"You're wearing a goofy outfit!" squealed Gir. Zim abruptly hung up.

  
  


Zim suddenly looked at a nearby TV monitor. The first customer (victim) was arriving! A gruff voice said that he wanted a burger and fries. Zim typed in the order and told the man to drive up to the window. When the bag of food was brought to Zim, he took out the burger and placed a mind pill between the buns. Then, Zim put the burger back into the bag. He leaned out the window with a confident, close-eyed expression on his face. "Thank you for coming to Burger Now, human. Please come again." When he felt the customer grab the bag, Zim opened his eyes and froze. Sitting in the car in front of him, food in hand, was an enormously fat man!

  
  


"AAAAUGH!!! EVIL PIG-MAN!!!" shouted Zim, who then ran inside the restaurant yelling and screaming. The fat man drove up to a trash can and tossed the food into it. "Good thing I didn't order a drink," he said as he looked back to the drive-thru window. He then drove off, muttering to himself, "Freak."

  
  


By now, Zim had calmed down and returned to the window, slightly shaken up. Fortunately for him, another customer was pulling up! A thin man ordered a burger and a soda. Once again, Zim slipped a pill into the burger and gave the bag to the man, this time without freaking out. Zim smiled evilly as the man drove off while eating the burger. When the thin man was on the highway, he began to feel really odd. He was halfway through eating his burger, when he saw an orange traffic cone on the side of the road.

"Hmm! A triangle! The square of the hypoteneuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the remaining two sides. An isosceles triangle is comprised of..."

  
  


Meanwhile, Zim was beginning to feel pretty good about himself. He was positive that his first two customers were bumbling morons by now. "Nothing can stop me now!" he says to himself.

And now another customer was driving up. "May I take your order?" asked Zim.

"I'd like two 'Gladly Meals' please," said a deep man's voice.

"Don't forget the toys!" said a VERY familiar boy's voice.

  
  


Zim couldn't believe it! It was the voice of Zim's human archenemy, Dib! "Excellent," said Zim slowly and menacingly.

  
  


In the car, Dib's sister, Gaz, was sitting next to him in the back seat. "I hope the meal comes with the mini-hacksaw," pouted Gaz, as she played a videogame on her portable electronic device.

"Well, I hope I get the mini-electron microscope!" said Dib excitedly.

  
  


Equally excited was Zim. This was his chance to finally be rid of Dib once and for all! He was so excited, his hands were shaking as he slipped the toys, as well as the pills, into the two "Gladly Meals". The car pulled up to the window and Zim gave the bags to the kids' dad. "Have a nice day!" grinned Zim. The man waved good-bye. As he was driving off, he gave the bags to his kids. Luckily for Dib, he turned back just in time to see Zim grinning at him through the drive-thru window!!

  
  


"Aaaaaugh!" shouted Dib. He quickly grabbed his bag and Gaz's bag and tossed them out the open car window. This caused Dib's father to stop the car. Dib opened the door and ran over to Gaz's bag. He began stomping on it until the bag was thoroughly flattened. Ketchup and mustard began oozing out of the bag as Gaz got out of the car, infuriated, and walked up to Dib.

"Why...did you do that?" asked Gaz, trying extremely hard to control her anger.

"Didn't you see that? That was Zim! He's probably poisoned the food or something! I just save our lives!"

Without a word, Gaz reached inside the second bag and pulled out a mini-electron microscope. Then, she stomped on Dib's "Gladly Meal" bag the same way that Dib stomped on her bag. When she was done, Gaz took the microscope back to the car with her.

"Hey! That's MY microscope!" shouted Dib.

"You mean MY microscope," said Gaz, as she slammed the door in Dib's face.

Dib got back in the car. "I just know that was Zim. I saw him! He's out to get us I tell ya! He's out to destroy us all!"

Dib's father pulled out of the restaurant and onto the street. "My poor, insane son," he said to himself.

  
  


Back at the restaurant, Chris discovered Zim hitting his head again and again against the window. Zim had witnessed the previous fiasco and was upset that Dib hadn't swallowed the pill. Chris simply shrugged his shoulders and continued mopping.

Suddenly, a car appeared at the drive-thru. Zim stopped hitting his head and looked out the window. "Um...may I help you?"

  
  


It was the thin man again. "Young pre-teen, I implore you. Are you attempting to extort my pleasurable noon-time consumption?"

"Eee??" uttered Zim, quirking an eyebrow.

The man showed Zim the half-eaten hamburger. "I was refused the opportunity to beseech you for some pickled tomato paste containers."

This speech was too much for Zim to comprehend. Frantically, Zim grabbed a fistful of ketchup packets and gave them to the thin man. "Here, take these! Just go away, fancy-talk human!"

The car drove off.

  
  


"I don't understand!," exclaimed Zim. "My sensors indicated that he had eaten the pill, yet he is intelligent! There's no possible explanation, unless...unless..."

Suddenly Zim fell to his knees and bellowed to the heavens: "THESE HUMANS ARE STOOOPID AND IT'S REVERSING THE EFFECTS OF THE PILLS!!!"

Zim stopped and observed that all the employees and customers were staring at him.

  
  


A moment later, Zim was kicked out of the restaurant, followed by the pills. The bag of pills teetered on the edge of a sewer grate before falling into the murky depths below.

"NOOOOOOOOO!!!" cried Zim.

"Hey!" yelled Chris. "I just told you our (kchchchch) policy! Now scram! (Kch)" He slammed the door of the restaurant.

Zim sat down on the curb. "I've lost my pills!" he shouted to nobody.

A drug addict came up behind him. "Yeah. I hate it when that happens, too."

  
  


Back home, Zim changed out of his human suit and joined Gir on the couch. The monkey show was just ending.

"You missed a good one!" said Gir.

"Don't talk to me," mumbled Zim.

"Plan didn't work?"

"Nah. How was I supposed to know about Burger Now's 'No crazy yelling' policy?"

"Oh," Gir said, and immediately fell asleep. Zim wondered where the pills went to as he tried to both ignore Gir's snoring and come up with a new plan.

  
  


Deep in the city sewer, a rat came across a bag of metal pills. The rat swallowed one and sat up on his hind legs. Taking a piece of rock in one paw, the rat began writing quantum physics equations on the sewer wall. Behind him, more hungry rats began to gather around the bag...

  
  


End.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



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